{"id":1011,"date":"2014-04-26T22:50:24","date_gmt":"2014-04-26T22:50:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.innerquests.netstorms.org\/?p=1011"},"modified":"2014-04-26T22:50:24","modified_gmt":"2014-04-26T22:50:24","slug":"atlas-shrugged","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/innerquests.chidakasha.co.uk\/index.php\/2014\/04\/26\/atlas-shrugged\/","title":{"rendered":"Atlas Shrugged"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p>Atlas Shrugged is more popular than ever among economic conservatives, precisely because it offers a full-blown defense of rapacious, predatory capitalism in a time of vast inequality.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daylightatheism\/series\/atlas-shrugged\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source and more on Rand<\/a>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/u-T0ey0IKDA\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>This is Francisco D&#8217;Anconia&#8217;s Money Speech from the novel Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. An article on the Alternet site, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.alternet.org\/news-amp-politics\/top-10-lessons-strange-mirror-universe-ayn-rands-atlas-shrugged\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">&#8217;10 Things I Learned About the World from Ayn Rand&#8217;s Insane &#8220;Atlas Shrugged&#8221;&#8216;<\/a> reminded me of the book that I first read almost forty years ago. Atlas Shrugged is a fantasy about intense inventive individualistic industrialists who Rand presents as the &#8216;Atlases&#8217; that sustain the world. Rand appeals to the individualist in all of us and we can empathise with the dedication and determination of her heroes. I&#8217;ve not re-read Shrugged in thirty years or so but I remember it fondly, as a fantasy, as I also remember &#8216;Lord of the Rings&#8217;, &#8216;Dune&#8217;, &#8216;Stranger in a Strange Land&#8217; and &#8216;The Dispossessed&#8217; all of which I read in the 1960&#8217;s and 70&#8217;s. I took ideas from these novels and they have all influenced my imagination and the way that I see the world. It&#8217;s quite likely that Rand&#8217;s book (which is really quite vicious in a heroic Wagnerian) warped my perception for a while but I&#8217;m a fundamentally decent chap and it didn&#8217;t corrupt me too much or too long. Unfortunately Rand does seem to have corrupted and warped the perception of generations of Americans with her presentation of capitalism as a corollary of freedom and competence. Those who have read &#8216;Shrugged&#8217; can hear its baleful echoes in a lot of the discourse of US politicians and media pundits, many of whom openly treat Rand&#8217;s text as sacred script as is revealed in this article.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Atlas Shrugged is more popular than ever among economic conservatives, precisely because it offers a full-blown defense of rapacious, predatory capitalism in a time of vast inequality. &nbsp; Source and more on Rand This is Francisco D&#8217;Anconia&#8217;s Money Speech from the novel Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. An article on the Alternet site, &#8217;10&#8230;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"><a class=\"btn btn-default\" href=\"https:\/\/innerquests.chidakasha.co.uk\/index.php\/2014\/04\/26\/atlas-shrugged\/\"> Read More<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">  Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,37,40,42],"tags":[114],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/innerquests.chidakasha.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1011"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/innerquests.chidakasha.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/innerquests.chidakasha.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/innerquests.chidakasha.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/innerquests.chidakasha.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1011"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/innerquests.chidakasha.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1011\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/innerquests.chidakasha.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/innerquests.chidakasha.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/innerquests.chidakasha.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}